Seeing Brian overcome his stammer filled me with professional pride

The first thing I noticed was his mum: the concerned way she looked at him as they entered my room and took their seats, the way she shifted uncomfortably when I, a speech and language therapist, asked Brian* if he knew why he was here, the way her shoulders tensed as I smiled expectantly at her teenage son.

Then, as he attempted to answer, his whole body suddenly jerked forward until his head was almost banging against his knees. I heard no words. I checked the referral information discreetly, shuffling quickly through papers and thinking angrily that the GP who’d referred him was completely off the mark. Is this a child with Tourette’s or a neurological disorder?

The letter stated “boy has a mild stammer – please advise”. After a few painful seconds, Brian finally managed to force out a “No!” and I realised that the GP was both right and wrong: yes, he had a stammer, but it wasn’t mild.

During that emotionally-charged first session, I learned that Brian had developed the stammer as a young child. At first his parents didn’t really notice; their health visitor and well-meaning relatives reassured them it would probably disappear over time. After a year, however, they noticed that Brian would sometimes blink repeatedly, as well as stammer. Then other movements began, some of which disappeared only to be replaced by others.

Now a teenager, almost every word was a struggle for Brian, but more distressing were the secondary movements I had just seen. He was doing well in school but had always refused to talk about his stammer. His mum said, heartbreakingly, that it was like his stammer didn’t exist if nobody mentioned it, so nobody did. As she shared all this with me, Brian sat silently, his eyes focused on the nursery rhymes poster on the wall. Occasionally he’d glance in my direction, looking for a reaction. I tried desperately not to give the wrong one.

The only other response I saw from Brian during that first session was a halfhearted nod, confirming that he would come back the following week.

I felt intrigued and daunted at the same time. What had brought Brian to this point and what was the best way to help him?

He came back to see me many times over the next few years, and gradually the wall of silence around his speaking difficulties began to crumble. A large part of therapy sessions for teenagers who stammer is to be more open about the fact that the stammer exists, and this was the most difficult part for Brian and his family. We did some work on his breathing and technique, but by far the biggest challenge was enabling Brian to accept his stammer.

Having worked in the NHS for more than 20 years, I know there are some moments that stay with you long after they happen, moments you remember to remind yourself of why you do what you do. One such moment was the day Brian came for his session, now aged almost 16, smiling and clearly itching to tell me something. His mum was with him, unusually. He told me (with a stammer, but no secondary movements) that he had spoken in front of his year group and teachers about his stammer, as part of his GCSE English oral examination.

Then I noticed his mum again; she had an air of optimism about her, a sense that everything was finally going to be ok. Gone was the anxiety that can only be seen in the eyes of a worried mother as she told me that Brian had also got himself a weekend job; he’d started at one end of the street and asked, with his stammer, in all the local shops until one agreed to give him a chance.

What courage. I was so proud of him and so grateful to that shop owner for giving him that chance.

*Not his real name

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Seeing Brian overcome his stammer filled me with professional pride

The Root Cause of Addiction and How to Overcome It

Addictive substances such as drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, command our brain’s reward system and cause addiction. “Drugs are chemicals that affect the brain by tapping into its communication system and interfering with the way neurons normally send, receive and process information” as stated by National Institute on Drug Abuse. Therefore, drugs change functioning of the brain from its roots. If we look at the matter from a physiological point of view, the chemical content of drugs encourages the brain’s reward system. This is how dopamine floods the brain’s reward system, which is one of the most important brain neurotransmitter. Dopamine is a hormone that regulates motivation, movement, emotion and pleasure. Dopamine gives the feeling of euphoric behavior and this is key mechanism that makes the person repeat the action.

Human connection is one of the most important factor that can trigger the secretion of dopamine. So, when a person falls in love with someone, his or her brain starts to secrete more dopamine along with oxytocin, which is another hormone that gives a good feeling. In contrast, emotional stress and disturbance, trauma, problems make disturb the balance between these crucial hormones. Thus, imbalance leads to addiction.

All human beings need social connection in order to develop efficient functional brain. This is also related to children and the way they are raised. Those children raised around loving family members without stress acquire an emotional stability. They grow up into confident children who handle stressful situations later in their adult life better.

Therefore, if your close one is struggling with any kind of addiction, the best way to cope with it is to give this person as much love and support necessary to overcome it. Reestablishing a healthy human connection is crucial in solving addiction. With emotional human connection, at the lowest point of your life, you’ll be ok.

An addict can try with the following steps to overcome his or her addiction:

1. Seek an alternative source of pleasure

People dealing with addiction can try to find some other ways to get them busy and be entertained at the same time. Taking up skiing or other sport that stimulates adrenaline is a good way to get busy and feel good. Reading or meditation is also helpful for those who are physically more passive.

2. Harness your creativity

Creative actions, such as drawing, painting or writing a book are also a good way to trigger release of dopamine.

3. Distance from people who encourage addiction

If an addict hangs out too often with people who made them addicts, then the best way to heal is to avoid these people as much as they could. This is one of the crucial steps towards overcoming long-lasting addictions.

4. Faith

When a person has faith in him or herself, anything is possible. Faith is the key element in achiving any goal. If a person believes in healing, and sees himself already healed and completely healthy, then freedom of any addiction will soon come.

Source:

HelpGuide.org

WikiHow.com

NHS.uk

The Root Cause of Addiction and How to Overcome It

Powerful leadership necessary to overcome financial pressures on the NHS

Leaders need to engage colleagues instead of adopting a pacesetting design and leading from the front, says Chris Ham. Photograph: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

The NHS needs leadership of the highest calibre if it is to react efficiently to fiscal and service pressures that are unprecedented in its historical past. We require to move on from a concept of heroic leaders who turn close to organisational performance to seeing leadership as shared and distributed during the NHS. Leaders must engage their colleagues in bringing about improvements in patient care, and transforming the way in which care is provided.

Turning these tips into practice is a challenge in an organisation in which many leaders have adopted a pacesetting design in which they have set demanding objectives and led from the front in delivering them. The dominance of pacesetting is not surprising when successive governments have used targets and overall performance management to drive enhancements in patient care across the NHS. But it is unlikely to be adequate to enagage or encourage staff to perform their component in generating the modifications now needed to use constrained budgets as successfully as feasible.

Future leaders require to adhere to the instance of profitable NHS organisations like Salford Royal foundation trust which is extensively recognised for its operate in bettering patient safety and quality. This has been accomplished via substantial amounts of personnel engagement as assessed in the annual staff survey and devolution of selection making throughout the organisation. Physicians, nurses, managers and other workers are empowered to boost care without having having to seek permission to do so and members of the trust’s executive group function as considerably as coaches and mentors as senior leaders in the organisation.

One of the characteristics of Salford Royal and other large-executing NHS organisations is continuity amid senior leaders. Sadly, this is typically the exception rather than the rule in a program the place chief executives and other senior managers turn in excess of a lot as well swiftly to have any likelihood of making a tangible difference. There is an urgent require to enable leaders the time to boost functionality in organisations that often have a long historical past of economic and support issues.

Better coninuity of leadership may also aid improve the points of interest of senior leadership roles in the NHS at a time when also a lot of of these roles are filled on an interim basis. The insecurity connected with chief executive and other senior positions serves as a deterrent to talented managers generating their careers inside the NHS. A far more systematic technique to talent management and occupation planning is also required to give greater self-confidence that a long term generation of leaders is emerging.

For their portion, regulators ought to pay significantly more consideration to the high quality of leadership in the NHS. This signifies supplying assistance to leaders in organisations that are especially challenged rather than instantly replacing leadership teams when the going will get difficult. The work the CQC has initiated to assess leadership and culture in its inspections is a step in the correct route.

Encouraging clinicians to go into leadership roles ought to also get more focus in view of the well-established partnership in between high levels of healthcare engagement and organisational functionality. Renewed efforts are necessary to help doctors to turn into leaders and make sure that they operate in partnership with knowledgeable managers and other people to improve patient care.

Final but not least, NHS leaders need to have to reflect much more accurately the diversity of the communities they serve. Put merely, this signifies actively recruiting far more ladies and folks from BME backgrounds into leadership roles. It also signifies establishing sufferers as leaders in a position to function alongside those in formal leadership positions to make certain that the voice of end users is heard and acted on.

As the general election approaches, leadership and management inside the NHS will come under scrutiny with politicians competing to criticise needless bureaucracy. Our research has shown that the NHS might be in excess of administered but there is no evidence it is above-managed.

If politicians want to reduce spending on administration, they 1st want to reduce the reporting and regulatory burden imposed by successive governments on the NHS.

We shall be debating these troubles at the fourth annual leadership summit at The King’s Fund on 21 May in which we will publish two new reports on how the NHS can get the initiative to produce the leadership essential in the potential.

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Powerful leadership necessary to overcome financial pressures on the NHS

We"ve cracked how to overcome nut allergic reactions, declare scientists

Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Clinical investigation facility at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, gave 99 youngsters aged amongst 7 and sixteen a sample of peanut protein in powder form. They increased the dosage in excess of six months until the youngsters had been in a position to consume a complete nut without having any adverse reactions.

Dr Andrew Clark and Dr Pamela Ewan hope the remedy will soon be obtainable on the NHS.

Dr Clark stated: “This is a genuine very first. Peanut allergies affect a single million people in the United kingdom. We have a massive investigation group and we have been functioning on this for about twenty years.

“So several men and women have this allergy and there are a quantity of deaths across the United kingdom each yr. Hopefully we can use this treatment method in the NHS now.”

One particular volunteer, Lena Barden, 11, of Histon, Cambs, mentioned: “I was nervous at initial. I hated peanuts. They’re disgusting and weird. But I was curious about what they tasted like.

“Last year I had my 1st doughnut, with traces of nuts, and it tasted wonderful. I truly feel so much much more safe.”

The results of the greatest single trial of its variety worldwide are published in The Lancet on Thursday.

Edited by Andrew Marszal

We"ve cracked how to overcome nut allergic reactions, declare scientists

UnitedHealth Group CEO Expects To Overcome ObamaCare Issues

Even though there will be expensive pressures to insurers for providing coverage to uninsured Americans signing up for wellness positive aspects under the Reasonably priced Care Act, the nation’s greatest wellness insurer, UnitedHealth Group UnitedHealth Group (UNH), expects development from new organization below the law.

The nation’s largest insurer, UnitedHealth Group, reported a 15 percent boost in fourth-quarter earnings as it prepares to broaden positive aspects to uninsured Americans this year under the Reasonably priced Care Act.  (Photograph credit score: Wikipedia)

UnitedHealth this morning presented an optimistic outlook for 2014 after reporting fourth-quarter revenue jumped 15 % to $ one.4 billion, or $ one.41 per share, in the fourth quarter compared to $ 1.2 billion, or $ one.twenty a share in the fourth quarter of 2012. Revenues rose 8 percent to $ 31.1 billion.

“There are undoubtedly close to term 2014 pressures, notably from ACA implementation and Medicare funding actions that will divert much more than $ one.50 per share in earnings from us in 2014,” UnitedHealth Group chief executive officer Stephen Hemsley. “But we have programs and actions in location to offset these reductions and to expand revenues to a variety of $ 128 billion to $ 129 billion and make earnings in the range of $ 5.40 to $ five.60 per share, with cash flows from operations among $ seven.eight and $ eight.2 bi7 billion.”

UnitedHealth is among the massive insurers participating in supplying overall health advantages to uninsured people by way of government-run exchanges as well as via health plans that contract with state Medicaid insurance packages for the poor.

UnitedHealth competes with Aetna Aetna (AET), Cigna Cigna (CI), Humana Humana (HUM) and Blue Cross and Blue Shield programs in markets across the nation, but the insurer described its participation in exchanges as “modest.” Executives mentioned it would be viewing closely for development in enrollment on exchanges from individuals, who are eligible for subsidies of up to $ 5,000 to acquire insurance coverage below the Inexpensive Care Act.

But UnitedHealth executives were cautious in a conference phone this morning that lasted far more than an hour with Wall Street analysts and traders on whether they will enter much more markets following this 12 months by offering merchandise on far more exchanges.

“We enter 2014 with our company in a really positive position,” Hemsley said. “We will continue to closely review the growth of the individual public exchanges in 2014 and will be selective in our approaches for 2015.”

Nonetheless, UnitedHealth expects to increase in many other locations relevant to the Inexpensive Care Act, especially by way of the states that determined to go along with the growth of Medicaid packages for the poor. Below the overall health law, the federal government picks up almost all of the tab for expanded advantages to Medicaid patients.

“We anticipate to comprehend sturdy growth by serving in numerous techniques: as established Medicaid plans expand through the ACA expansions as eligible Medicaid prospects are identified by way of the federal and state exchange markets and as the inevitable Dual Eligible MME initiatives get started to kind and are implemented,” Hemsley explained.

UnitedHealth Group CEO Expects To Overcome ObamaCare Issues